So far so good. Pretty much the same startup as the older model, so it will darken as we go and needs some water daily for a little while. The husband accidentally threw a bunch of lettuce cores in here before the microbes had a chance to get fully going, it started clumping together, so I let it go a day without adding more and it went back to normal and got through them. My write up on a comparison of the older and newer model: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1742602039642300416